Subconscious (Original Ending)
by KQSimply
Summary: This will contain some spoilers for the film, and, of course, major spoilers for the fic. It picks up from chapter 13, where things originally went a little...differently. This is the darker, less-pleasant ending to my fanfiction "Subconscious".


** Just updating this one-off to include the lovely fanart MaryLikesStuff has done recently! c':

 **marylikesstuff . tumblr post / 134295140054 /**

Take out the spaces...if you enjoyed this at all, believe me when I say it's worth it to check it out. They're so cute, I almost shed a little tear! The doodles and artwork on their blog are fantastic, be sure to check it all out. In addition, MaryLikesStuff does commission work, you can probably send a message along and find out if you can get something done c: I have two desktops and I loooove them. c:

Anyway, onto the show...

* * *

 _I'm not really sure why I'm posting this apart from the fact that it's been driving me crazy and I've had a number of requests recently, I still feel pretty weird. Not to mention, though I've done little bits of editing here and there to make it flow better as a "one-shot", I haven't done any final-draft editing, which is what whittles down long, drawn-out phases of free-writing that I do while I'm working on a rough draft. What that means is, there will be parts of this that will drag on and on, and there are a number of unnecessary scenes that I would edit out or change if I felt like re-writing the entire ending. But that sort of defeats the purpose, I think...?_

 _I'm gonna say right now that what's below is a downer. It's dreary, it's drawn-out in parts, and there are scenes present that don't really need to be. And it may be riddled with errors of both the spelling and the plot variety. I apologize in advance._

 **Also, there will be spoilers for both the film and for the Subconscious fanfic.** So if you have interest in seeing the movie or reading the fic, I'd stop right here. c:

 _The original ending came in during the build-up in chapter 13, directly after Joy is forced back up to HQ. In this version of Subcon, Fear gives up and is unable to follow her, and therefore doesn't stop Joy from resigning and choosing to stay with him in the subconscious. Two or three yet-to-be-named chapters followed, and it was while I was planning to glue some of those chapters together that I began to feel the whole thing was just WAY too depressing. While a twisted part of me enjoyed writing it, I wanted it to end on a much better note, and I wanted to be able to look back on a project that felt as complete as it looked. Sooo, though it sucked for me, I rewrote the ending, first with mild changes and then eventually with major ones, and this got tucked away. I hinted at putting it up, then changed my mind a few times. But now that I've received a number of requests to upload it, and since I'm still kinda numb from the other night, I think I'm ready to put it up. _

_I was gonna call this 'bonus material' as a thank-you to everyone who read and kindly expressed their appreciation of the actual story, but it'd be like if you took a crumpled up piece of paper with dark smudges on it and said "Here, gift-art."...haha...so, let me just say it with actual words: Thanks to everyone who read Subconscious or any of my other IO fics, your encouragement it really means a lot to me, and not to get all sentimental, but after the other day, I can say that with sheer sincerity._

 _~KQSimply_

* * *

Fear let himself go limp in the dozens of hands that had caught him, keeping his eyes trained on the Recall Tube he'd been so close to clambering into. As he sank to his knees, he clamped his eyes shut, envisioning what the ascent to Headquarters may have looked or felt like, how long it would've taken him to get back up there, and what the other Emotions might have said to him upon his homecoming, as the crowd now worked together to return him to his feet. Would Joy have been proud of him for making it so far without her? Would Sadness have cried to see him? Would Anger have been impressed? Would Disgust have said something kind to him, something warm and unforgettable? And Riley…would she have forgiven him for the awful things he had caused her to feel, when he, too, witnessed that fatal accident so long ago? _  
_  
He shuddered to think that he'd probably never know.

All was quiet, now. With thanks to this silence, Fear could divert his attention to the recent echoes on the air he was only now aware of, and he forced his eyes to focus on a Mind Worker standing before him, her blue eyes misting against his with what might have been pity.

"…Fear? Did you hear me?" He couldn't answer. He couldn't even swallow to clear the way for an attempt. He could merely blink at her as she moved her hands away from his and tried her question once more. "…Is that too tight?"

Dread, for once, enhanced his speed, and his gaze slipped downward. His chest tightened at the sight of the manacles encompassing either one of his scrawny wrists, and the scant length of chain between them. After a heavy heartbeat or two, a chasm opened itself up inside of Fear, swallowing his every meager scrap of hope into its bottomless depths, and he forced himself to accept there was nothing left for him to do. Not an action he could perform, not a plea he could offer, nor a name he could appeal to.

It was over.

He hung his head, turning his eyes upward in order to find those of the Mind Worker again. To her question, he slowly shook his head no, mouth faintly agape, eyes emptily roving to and fro.

A hand found its way to the crook of his arm and rested there for a moment or two. "...I'm sorry, Fear," the voice belonging to it uttered. "You…you don't seem like a corrupt Emotion to _me_."

The words, though they meant well, carved valleys into him as they were spoken, for he knew who it was who thought of him in such a way. And what was worse, what made this ordeal worse than the presence of these unnecessary restraints, or the fate that loomed over him like an ill-intending shadow, was that he _still_ loved her. He wanted nothing more than to serve her again. All he wanted was to keep her safe. Safe and therefore happy. That Riley herself was the judge presiding over his case, that she had been the one to sentence him to the Subconscious without sparing him so much as a haphazard farewell glance, was enough to bring a fresh wave of tears to his eyes that he couldn't resist anymore. He curled his fingers into innocent bunches before his chest, toggling his gaze from one stoic worker to the next before allowing his tears drain.

"…Come on," came a dim voice; someone patted him twice on the back. "Let's get you back to where you belong."

Fear had no other choice but to walk, his chains chiming at his feet. He watched through a film of tears as the earth moved beneath him but he could not register the passage of time until they had lead him back out to the gloom of Riley's unconscious Mindscape.

For a brief moment, he lifted his gaze skyward and found the gleaming white tower standing strong and bright in the distance. It bludgeoned his soul to think that Headquarters was brimming with nightmares and horrific memories without him, and that it was too late for him to make a difference now, but he just couldn't pull his attention away. Fear's eyes traced its radiant outline over and over again, trying to memorize what it looked like, trying to trigger selfish memories of its soft, luxurious comforts, the couch he'd gotten cozy on so many times, a warm cup of tea with the sunrise, the sound of Mom's voice.

He also tried not to acknowledge that he had just descended onto the first jagged stair of many that would lead him back down to the depths of the Subconscious. But here, he failed, and he could strangle his desperate sobs no longer.

\- • -

The room suddenly swam beneath chilling purple light.

The three remaining Emotions of Headquarters shot their collective gaze up to the Monitor, where a new, cheerful hockey Memory played on as though nothing had happened.

"…What the hell was that?" Anger was the first to rise. His hands were curling into fists.  
"I don't know." Disgust approached the Console to have herself a closer look.

Suddenly, the footage gave way to a terrifying Memory. A girl's eyes flashed on the screen, doused beneath Fear's signature shade of violet.

The Emotions cried out in unison; their eyes rocketed across the screen as the image yawned, clearing the way for yet another one of Joy's giddy Memories of harmless hockey again.

"What's going on?!" Disgust and Sadness crept close together. Anger stood in front of them, spreading his arms as though to protect them from a threat as legitimate as a loaded gun.

It was as though he knew they were under attack.

Fear's Memories began to dominate Riley's once-pleasant dreams, relentlessly playing moments from the horrendous accident until the colour purple was all that the three Emotions knew of, anymore. The floor began to quake as Riley's heart rate thrashed below them. They gathered into a tight bunch of confusion and terror, gripping one another in bundles of tense, shaking fingers.

This dream had become a nightmare, and none of the Emotions remaining in Headquarters could do a thing to stop it.

"Sh-she's not moving," whimpered Sadness. "She's _not moving…"_

"She has to get up," slurred Anger. "She _has_ _to get up…"_

"Oh my God," chanted Disgust. "Oh my God. _Oh my God…"_

There was a whoosh of air behind them, followed by the unmistakable thud of a body.

They turned simultaneously, watching with an eerie, stock-still silence as Joy pulled her crumpled form halfway off the floor, leaning on her hip and one hand.

She was completely empty-handed, barring Riley II, who hung limply across the fingers of Joy's opposite hand.

In this position, the little stuffed bear appeared to be dead.

Joy was slowly rocking her head back and forth. "…I give up."

No one else could breathe.

"…If this is _really_ what Riley wants, now…if she wants it to be this way so _badly_ because of what I've done…I give up. There's nothing I can do. Not without him. Not without Fear. It's over. _I give up."_

Her ankles were weak and wobbly as she finally made her way back to her feet. She hugged Riley II close to her breast before numbly handing it to Disgust.

"...Keep Riley well. Okay?"  
 _"What?"_  
"Keep her well. It's the closest to _happy_ she'll be, from now on."  
"St-stop, _stop_ it. Don't talk like that."

"And Anger?"  
Anger grit his teeth together. "Joy! You can't do this!"  
"Try to keep it in check. Life isn't fair. I guess that's what we've learned from all of this, isn't it?"  
"Shut up. Just _shut up!"_

Joy knelt down before Sadness and her anguished eyes.  
"…Sadness…honey…keep doing what you're doing. Love Riley no matter what. Love her as much as I do. Take good care of her."  
"Joy. Please. _Please."_

Joy approached the Console in spite of Sadness's stammering, tearful protests.

She closed her eyes. She'd memorized all of the routes to the Subconscious. She could type out the code to get there by heart.

She could be Joy one last time if she savoured the journey down to its depths.

"…And Riley?..."

Joy lay her hands across the keyboard.

"Please...forgive me for this, someday. _Please?"_

Her colleagues desperately mobilized to stop her. They scrambled to her side and tugged on her arms, her wrists, and begged her to come to her senses.

"I-I can't keep her _well_ forever Joy. I can't pretend to be you. I've tried. Believe me, I've tried, a-and just can't do it." Disgust's panicked gaze was deeply disturbing. Joy couldn't face it for long. "Riley _can't_ be Riley without you. Y-you can't leave _me_ in charge. I—I can't do it. I don't _want_ to do it. I don't _want_ you to leave."

"You – you _can't_ leave," Anger cried. In spite of the heat-waves shimmering against the air around him, his eyes were brilliant, vast, and soaked. "You can't, you just can't leave. You belong up here, with us, with Riley. You made your mistakes, but we'll…we'll figure it all out. You can help her forget what she saw. I'll let you, if that's what it takes. You can make her _smile_ again. I _know_ you can, I just know you can. But – b-but you _can't_ leave. You just _can't leave!"_

A tube descended from the ceiling. Joy turned to face it, forcing her peripheral to blot out the appearance of her beloved crew, forcing Anger's bewildering echoes out of her head.

Then, a timorous voice shivered into the air, and Joy cringed; she had no choice but to turn to it, and immediately she found Sadness.

"…Please, Joy…" So choked on tears as she was, her words were but a hoarse whisper. "…Don't leave us. Please, don't leave. Don't go. Not you, too." She drove her eyes shut, lowering her head. _"Please."_

A dull ache emerged from the core of Joy's chest as her eyes swam within those of Sadness's. Agony sidled along her every heartbeat. Everything burned as she pulled at herself to speak.

Joy unexpectedly succumbed to an urge to smile for them. To represent their happy girl one last time. "…I'm through with breaking promises. I promised somebody that everything would be okay…and it's time for me to remind them of that." Joy laughed through her nose and took a single step backwards, against the stammering protests of her colleagues. "It'll be a long time before Riley can smile again anyway. I understand that, now. I'm just sorry it took me so long. I really struggle with these kinds of things…you know?" A gulp, so that she might continue. "But in the future, I want you all to look back on this moment whenever you wonder what went wrong. When you need someone to blame, remember who it was, and _especially_ remember who it wasn't."

She spoke as though the room was silent, as though no one was rushing to stop her.

"And hey, who knows. Maybe when all of this is over, if Riley ever forgets or just moves on, I'll walk out of this a better, wiser Joy."

And she closed her eyes.

"For Riley."

And she, too, was gone.

\- • -

For several days, Joy appealed to the chairmen overseeing Riley's new personality agenda. They continuously ruled against the idea of allowing her into the Subconcious due to her criminal history, but Joy would not give up. She fully intended to keep her final promise. Fear would not linger down there alone without her.

One day, by some miracle, one particular Coordinator – the very same who had first addressed Headquarters with news of the changes abroad – witnessed Joy's latest plea and took pity on her and the situation. On the assurance that she would not interfere with the program again, he convinced his associates to permit Joy into the Subconscious once more, with a caution that she would require special permission to retreat if the agenda was still in effect.

Joy agreed. This time, she was sincere.

It left a putrid taste in his mouth to lead Joy – _Joy_ , of all figures – up to those great wooden doors, and he had to agree with a former comment from one of his colleagues that she must have been crazy. Given all of the chaos as of late, he supposed this shouldn't have seemed so shocking.

Everyone in Riley's head, it seemed, was a little crazy these days.

Alas, Joy's motives and insistence were enough to persuade him, and after confirming with her once more that this was indeed what she wanted, he commanded that the doors be opened, and he personally escorted Joy through the halls of the Subconscious so that she might accompany her friend.

He was being kept only a short distance from the entrance – beyond their shoulders, the faint sliver of light creeping between the doors was still in sight. And at first, Joy thought this to be one single reason to rejoice. She thought it to be somewhat of a silver lining. But as she came to realize just how desperate Fear's situation had become, her smile was chased away by a violent bitter chill, her innards plummeted, and the world around her suddenly changed. The dark felt darker. The cool air of the Subconscious's eternal shade seemed brutal and unbearable. Her every particle throbbed.

Joy emptily approached him. She imagined herself issuing a soft sort of acknowledgement as she did so, but her voice fled and left her with nothing. Therefore, as she crossed into his field of vision, his eyes darted upwards too quickly and at first, he almost fell into a panic. This time, Joy remained motionless, allowing him to understand on his own who she was and what little harm she meant him. Then, just as he had done upon belatedly recognizing her before, Fear melted for her, as lost as the tearstains on his face, and he lifted his shackled hands up to greet hers. They wrapped their fingers around one another's in silence, their breaths ensnared in their throats.

For a long time, neither one of them spoke.

"…Do you need anything else?" asked the Coordinator.

He was made to wait for his answer. Joy lowered to the ground and steered Fear's lean figure snug against her own, smoothing a hand down the length of his back. She felt his muscles ease, listened to his whimpers subside. With that, she could force a polite smile out of herself and briefly redirect her gaze.

"No, thank you," she whispered as Fear curled up against her, clutching her forearm in his fists. His grip was very tight, just barely tolerable. But he was more than welcome to stay.

Joy lowered her eyes, then closed them. "…We'll be okay."

The Coordinator knew, then, to dismiss himself, leaving the two Emotions behind.

* * *

[ chapter 14 ]

* * *

"…Mom? Dad?"

Riley clung to the railing of the stairwell. Her parents glanced up from the dining table below, looking surprised, which Riley felt was fair. Even _she_ understood that her voice was unrecognizable. It was soft, shimmery and quiet, like gossamer. Barely there, yet there it was, if one paid close attention.

"…Can I talk to you about something?"  
"Yes, Riley, of course you can."

Dad sounded eager. And everything about Mom seemed to open up. They'd been waiting for this moment for months. They knew it was coming, but they had no idea it would take so long to arrive. Finally, at long last, here it was.

Or so they thought.

"I want to pull out of hockey."

"—You…you _do?"_

Riley cringed. Her tongue quickened its pace. She had to talk over them before they could bolster the lurking suggestion that it was a stupid idea, that it was far from what she actually wanted. But only Riley knew that it really was the only solution. It was yet another necessary step to move on.

She knew her parents wouldn't understand.

"I just need a break," she said. "I want to focus on school for a while. Maybe other things too."

Dad was struggling with the idea more than her mother. She could tell that he was torn between wanting to fight for her spirit, while trying to be supportive of her needs. Typical Dad. He was likely so caught up in his own inner battles that he was completely oblivious to her own. There were little tiny voices in her head, some which were solemnly agreeing with her tactic, that giving up the thing she once loved would be the best thing for her, and then there were others, microscopic in comparison, hiding in the farthest, darkest recesses of her mind, that passively whispered for her to reconsider. Maybe she could give it one more chance. Maybe shutting out so much all at once was a poor decision.

Then again, given all of the suffering she'd been going through without knowing what to do, it only made sense to do what was easiest. She shrugged at her parents' dismay, feigning indifference. "…You're not mad, are you?"

Riley's mother stood up, folding her arms, looking uncomfortable and cold. "…Of course we're not," she said softly, to the contrary of what her posture conveyed. But as Riley looked closer she could see that it was true, her mother was not mad…she seemed...wounded. "We want you to do what's best for you. If you need a break…we can let your coach know."

There was a pause. It was as though Riley had to think about what she needed to do next. As though she needed to re-teach herself how the mechanisms worked, and how to pull it off flawlessly, without seeming so obviously out of practice.

A slow, steady smile eased across her face for a brief instant.

It was the best she could manage.

"Thanks."

* * *

Disgust drew back from the Console, a contemplative fist shaking before her jaw. She felt unclean and wicked; it felt as though she had committed a crime, and though it had been under some necessity, it'd been incredibly difficult for her to do, and now she hated herself for having done it. But alas, it was done. Disgust rid them all of the aching reluctance to return to hockey again, and in a way, it was a huge relief, more than anything.

Anger, however, would disagree with this. It was not a relief. It was a setback. It was frustrating. It gutted him that they'd all agreed to do it. And it wasn't solving anything. He glared at Disgust from behind, gritting his teeth together, unable to resist as his hands transformed into bulging fists. And from the security of his own seething imagination, he throttled Disgust by the shoulders and shouted at her for casting shadows over a place that was already plenty dark. He wanted to slap her for her wise suggestions and her inarguable opinions. It wasn't fair, how… _right_ she was.

Sadness expelled a tearful breath and rolled her gaze out to Riley's floating Islands of Personality, twisting her hands together as she continued to stare. She had seen this coming ages ago, truth be told, though she'd never imagined that they'd lose so much all at once. Taking it all into thought felt like enough to bowl her down to her knees, and so she swallowed against the bad thoughts, drying her eyes from behind her glasses as she crossed the room in silence.

With no one present or paying attention to stop her, Sadness reached into the Core Memory dock and unplugged the brilliant orb which powered Hockey Island, hugging it to her chest. Disgust and Anger could only look on helplessly as the Island's fluorescent lights began to shut down, sector by sector, rendering the Island dark, defunct…practically dead in every way.

Everyone bowed in unison, as though to say, _So be it._

\- • -

Joy had always attributed her ability to sense Riley to the air. Things would change when something was happening to capture Joy's attention. It moved in a way she could not only feel, but _grasp_ , and whenever she held on, it would tickle her, satisfy her, or otherwise leave her smiling and simply itching to cause Riley to do the same. The others had abilities to sense Riley too, but they described them in ways Joy rarely understood, save for Sadness, who never could put her ability into words. Disgust claimed her senses were at times kicked into overdrive _("Can't you feel how awful that is?"_ she'd say _),_ and Anger described his gift as a spark that started deep within before creeping out to the extremities, at the speed of a lit fuse. And Fear…Fear simply claimed to 'hear bad things' and reacted accordingly, though she figured there was likely far more to it than that. She just couldn't imagine what it would be.

Nevertheless, it was no wonder the other Emotions always missed the things Joy could detect; their abilities to feel for Riley's state of being were misdirected, seeking out everything but the good. Of course, especially by now, Joy knew better than to blame or belittle them for it, even from down here, where it would've been safe to do so. It wasn't as though they could retaliate or argue, given the considerable distance between them.

But it wasn't Joy's nature to gloat. At least, it wasn't anymore. Now, her nature was to give. Whether it was in sharing her radiant glow, telling stories, singing songs, or merely lending her presence…it was what she did. And she was glad to do it for as special and destitute a friend as Fear, who depended so fiercely on her generosity these days that it had become the only thing keeping his very essence intact. The both of them knew this, but Joy did her best to seem oblivious. Fear, too, did his best to ignore the fact that he needed her so badly, but his act always came crashing down around him at any slight or false suggestion that she might leave him alone down here.

A promise was a promise. Joy wasn't going anywhere.

And, greedy and selfish though it was, Fear was so glad she could be there with him. With care and a little effort he could still touch her, and sometimes, if he had words at all, he could whisper to her, and when there was precious little else for him to say or do, he could simply lose himself in that fantasy aura that traced her every divine contour. He loved it so much. It made his stay in the belly of the Subconscious tolerable, at the very least. It gifted him with the remnants of his sanity. He couldn't thank Joy enough for staying by his side, against every desire that tugged at her to get up and go home.

Though it _was_ difficult for Joy to stay still some days. Boredom crippled Joy in the same way Fear's hallucinations crippled him. But if she could find anything at all, any glimmer of hope, any reason to shine or add light and just a little cheer to Fear's miserable circumstances, Joy would reach out, seize whatever she could and bring it back to him, which he never failed to appreciate, and it was this that kept her rooted to the spot beside him. It was the little things she could do to relieve his ever-present terror and even make him smile that made it worth her while to keep her promise to him.

One day – or was it nighttime? – an opportunity came to Joy in the form of a slight change in the air, one that amplified the luster of Joy's crystalline eyes. She couldn't help but grin as she sat up against the wall.

"…Fear? Fear, do you feel that? Do you feel what _day_ it is?"

Fear's own eyes fluttered as he skimmed them through the darkness. He reached out with all of his might to feel whatever it was Joy could, and he wound up surprising her with a hesitant nod as he realized what it was. "Y-yeah. I do," came his frail reply. Joy looked at him, and he could tell she was proud. It made him feel warm and clever, if only for a moment or two. New concerns swept these rare sensations away like a wave over the sand. "…How old do you think we are, by now?"

Joy's grin faltered, but it wasn't Fear's fault. She wasn't disappointed in his question as much as she was disheartened by her own lack of an answer. If only she'd been bothering to keep track. If only she could feel _everything_ that happened outside of the Subconscious. She figured her guesses would put her off by a year or two…being unable to determine her own age was so tremendously off-putting that she couldn't beat to think about it. She shook her head at him instead. "…You know something, Fear? It's just a number. It doesn't really matter."

Fear withered, wishing he'd never asked. Joy was probably right, even if he could tell that she cared about the sum of that number every bit as much as he did. It was hard to pretend it didn't matter, but he tried.

"…Hey." Joy lowered her voice to an enticing whisper, coaxing Fear to straighten again. "Let me see your hands."

Though his movements were slow, Fear offered them up to her without hesitation, blinking as she tucked her two sets of tiny fingers between his palms, guiding herself around the chain which kept his hands linked so close together. He instinctively folded his over hers, muting her temperate glow, but only slightly; the light permeated through and around his fingers, creating the same pleasing effect it might have if he had cupped the flame of a candle, but Joy was a much better substitute for this, for she came without the risk of burns or fire.

Joy smiled. "…Perfect…now, let's make a wish."

Fear closed his eyes, and he wished from the bottom of his heart.

Together, Fear and Joy blew their makeshift candles out, and when Fear's eyes were open again, his hands were now vacant and dark – Joy had slipped hers from his.

It didn't have to be Riley's birthday. Joy was his personal wishing star. He could pray to her all he wanted, whenever he wanted. She was the keystone that held him together. But this little ritual of theirs...it always felt extra special.

"…I hope mine comes true," said Joy, her tone indiscernible. "It was a good one."

As he flexed his empty fingers before his eyes, Fear simply couldn't resist asking her what she had wished for.

Joy laughed. "Well, I can't tell you that, silly, or else it won't come true." She grinned a mysterious grin and leaned in close to him. "…But you know what?"  
That smile was a contagious one. Fear helplessly smiled too, if only slightly, if only for a moment. "What?"  
"I'll bet that we wished for the exact same thing. It'll definitely come true now...just a matter of when. That's all."

Fear altered his position, huddling his paltry weight against her body. She put an arm across his shoulders, bathing him in her light. The two were quiet for a while, as they sought comfort in a world where there was barely enough to go around.

He was too tired to be skeptical about their wish. For the very first time, he let himself think the way he imagined Joy did. Joy-logic felt alien to him, a bit like telling himself that everything would be okay before stepping off the edge of the Memory Dump, but as he pictured himself floating through the void, he realized he was almost enjoying the illusory sensation of falling.

No wonder Joy smiled so much. Things didn't feel so hopeless when he thought like this. He felt free. And oh, how tremendously good it felt, to feel free.

What he wouldn't have given to make the sensation a permanent reality again, if only Riley would let him out of this place. But he knew she was still hurting; he knew because of the nightmares he had for her, the hallucinations, the flashbacks of the tragedy he'd witnessed and was forced to experience on Riley's behalf…he knew that so long as the Memory was with her, there was precious little she could do for him now. That, surely, was the _real_ reason why he was forced down here. Surely he wasn't so wicked an Emotion that she'd truly banish him without good reason. At least, that was what he chose to believe, from time to time.

Other times, he wasn't so lucky. Other times, his mentality was crueler to him, like some separate spiteful entity.

 _Coward_ , it spat at him without warning, _spineless coward, LOOK at you._

 _That's it. Nightmares for Riley. That's all you're good for now._

 _Enjoy them. They're all you've got left. You're done for. History._

 _I know you want to blame Joy for this, just a little, come on, admit it, but REMEMBER: This is still YOUR fault._

 _You know something? You really do belong in this terrible place._

Fear flinched. He wanted to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, but it didn't seem right. He remembered that this was his voice, this was _his inner voice_ , and he didn't have to listen to it. Or did he? Was it better to listen, to give in? Was it wrong to deny himself, was it bad to tell himself to shut up, to leave him alone, not to speak if he didn't have anything nice to say, not to make him feel so ashamed? _  
_  
He kept meaning to ask Joy what she thought he should do, but he was far too shy to bring it up to her…and besides…he knew what it all really meant…He knew what was happening to him.

He supposed his own Subconscious just didn't care to let him admit it. Maybe that was a good thing.

Joy pulled him in closer to her, and Fear tried to clear his thoughts with an empty sigh as she did so. She rested her hands against the tangle of his, and he played idly with her fingers.

"...That sun's gonna come up soon," Joy said. She said this once a day. Perhaps twice a day; it was so hard to tell. "You just wait. It will. You'll see. It's always darkest before the dawn."

Though Joy truly believed in it, the sentiment always left Fear feeling a little confused.

It was already so dark here in the Subconscious...how could it _possibly_ get any darker?

\- • -

There was no sun, nothing to stand in as a makeshift clock, and therefore, there was no time in the Subconscious. And with little else to do but to wait and pretend to calculate the passage of time, Fear and Joy often found themselves slip in and out of consciousness at irregular, mistimed intervals. It was not unusual for Fear to startle both of them out of sleep due to his frequent nightmares, but it was quite unusual for Joy to startle awake of her own accord.

Something told her to wake up. She'd put it out of mind that it was possible to wake up from exhilaration before – someone had told her long ago that this was highly unlikely. But here she was, awake, alert, and aware that something was very, very wrong.

Fear was safe, and that was good – in fact, miraculously, he was still fast asleep beside her. And so she looked elsewhere. She glanced down to where her feet were supposed to have been, and how it was she knew they were the initial root of the problem was anyone's guess. At once she covered her mouth to stifle the shriek that had dared to leave her throat.

Joy's mind began to race. Why? And how? Was she dreaming? Was this a bad dream? It couldn't have been. Everything around her felt real and horrifically current. If this was a dream it was a mighty one. She was lucid. That must've been it. If she was lucid, that meant she had control, which meant she could wake up. And she tried just that. She told herself to wake up a few times. She closed her eyes and then opened them. She pinched her cheek until it brought tears to her eyes.

Nothing was working.

And so, she had no choice but to admit that she was awake, and that in spite of the wish she'd recently made with all of her might, the infamous darkness before the dawn had yet to so much as adorn its shadowy veil. She, at least, was nowhere _near_ daybreak. Not even close.

She struggled to catch her breath as she thought of what this would mean for Fear. Was he closer to the light than she was, she wondered? Or would he be made to endure the worst of the darkness alone, without her? And if so, would he make it so far? Would he stay strong just long enough to cross the threshold? Would he ever make it home, where he deserved to be?

Joy took a deep breath and gulped it down.

No more questions. She had to figure out what to do.

First, she looked over her shoulder and saw the faint slivers of light coming from the great entrance of the Subconscious. She realized at once that if she simply left the Subconscious' confines, she'd be able to save herself. She was more than likely fading away because Riley didn't know where she was and had no _choice_ but to forget. There was no science behind this – it was unheard of to fade outside of the Memory Dump after all, but then, it was unheard of to send Memories into the Subconscious, too. This was all just a part of the bizarre chain of events she had started when she had the bright idea to break all of the rules for Riley's sake.

She supposed she had this coming.

Joy forced her eyes away from the door and clenched her jaw.

No, she couldn't leave him. It wouldn't be fair. She'd made a promise. She'd promised Fear she'd stay with him, and an unforeseen event such as this wasn't about to destroy that promise now. The answer was to let this happen, to let herself fade away without disturbing him. She couldn't bear the thoughts of waking him up to tell him she was going away. He wouldn't have tolerated it. It would hurt him so badly. She'd let him rest. Yes. Joy nodded to herself as she tried to settle on this idea, watching his slim body as it breathed in what she hoped was peaceful slumber before she too closed her eyes. She'd go quietly. He wouldn't even realize she was in any danger.

Just slip away like a breath among many, and…

Her eyes snapped open.

No, no, no, she _couldn't_ do that. When he woke up and discovered her gone, what would he do? Surely he'd think she abandoned him without any reason but to break yet another promise. He'd panic without her, he'd lose his mind, and besides, as selfish as it was, she truly wanted to say goodbye. But _how_ , how could she? What would she say? What would he say?

For too long, as the minutes ticked by, absorbing more and more of her into nothingness as they passed, Joy thought…and thought…and nothing was coming to her…so she thought longer still…

…until at last, she found herself smiling, drying her eyes on her palms, before reaching a hand up to Fear's shoulder. After shifting her position to sit on her knees in order to hide them, she gave him a gentle shake.

"…Fear? …Fear, wake up…"

Fear moaned, parted his eyes, and startled, but only briefly. His floating brow lowered and then perked with concern as he was made to face her; a chill sped up his spine. He could tell that she'd been crying.

"Wh-what's wrong?"

Joy's smile only increased as she moved to exist a little closer to him. "Nothing," she whispered. "Nothing major. Only…"

And, menacingly, she trailed off. Fear swallowed, ducking his head once he'd tossed his eyes around him. Nothing _seemed_ to be the matter, nothing seemed poised to hurt them. Normally he was the one to shake her awake, to announce the presence of some monster or phobia or aversion or hallucination. This was different, and it was throwing him off.

"Please? You can tell me."

Joy bit her lip and looked up to him, tucking a wayward wisp of her hair behind her ear.

"I had a bad dream," she told him.

Fear's eyes brimmed with understanding, just as Joy expected them to. Comprehension, shock, and just a hint of disbelief silenced him for a beat. "…A…a bad dream? _You?"  
_ Joy nodded. "Uh huh. My very first one."

Fear's stomach felt a little sick. He was so used to nightmares…what must it have been like, he wondered, to have experienced their true, unfettered horrors for the first time, without the ability to expect it? He cringed and lowered his voice to a careful, empathetic whisper. "…Are you scared?"  
Again, Joy nodded. "Yeah. A little. I've never really felt _scared_ before…I'm not sure what to do." She fixed him with her eyes and issued a slow, uncertain smile. "…What would _you_ do?"

Fear shuddered. No one had ever come to him for advice before. Not like this. But worse than the uncomfortable sensation of being put on the spot like this was the realization that he actually had to think about his answer. His eyes darted back and forth as he tried to remember exactly what it was he did in situations like this. After a little consideration, it came back to him. "Well...Sometimes, it was as easy as climbing into bed with Mom and Dad. They would hold us, and tell us everything was going to be okay. A-and it would be. Because they said so, I suppose. They always knew what to say." He sighed, disconnecting his gaze, letting it droop to the floor. "…I miss them both so much...I wish we could see them again..."

"...Me too."

The two Emotions were quiet for a while.

Then, Joy inched just a little closer to him. "…Hey...Fear?"  
Fear blinked up to her.  
"…Could you do that for me?"  
He blinked again, suddenly unable to sit still, for he knew what she meant, and it made him uncomfortable  
"…Could you hold me the way Mom and Dad used to? Could you? Please?"

Though he'd seen it coming, the request sent subtle shocks through his system. It was very backwards, what she was asking him to do, and he was very nervous to please her. Wasn't sure he could do it right. But when he stumbled and got lost in her imploring eyes, when he saw the very real traces of fear her smile was working so hard to mask, he couldn't resist his frightened nature anymore. It was finally time to return the favour of comfort that Joy had so selflessly brought to him. And so, slowly and very carefully, Fear lifted his manacled hands and invited Joy to huddle against his chest. He lowered his wrists behind her shoulders, trapping her body against his, waiting nervously for her protests, but there came none. In fact, she drew a calm, soothing breath in his arms – he felt her expand and deflate – and just like that, as though he possessed the same magic powers she did, Joy was at peace with him.

Fear's mouth twitched into a smile. He couldn't believe it. Here, in the Subconscious of all places, for the first time in his life, _Fear_ was able to provide comfort to another. He felt special and for the first time in ages, he felt _wanted_ again. He felt extraordinary. And Joy, why, holding her felt wonderful too. She was warm, unlike the shackle tethering his neck to the wall at his back; she was organic (faerie-like though she was), unlike the serrated barriers of the Subconscious, but most of all…most _important_ of all…she was close, so very close to him, nearby, directly at his fingertips, unlike anything else that still held meaning to him.

Joy drank the moment in, greedily at first, but then, steadily, savouring every last drop. "…Fear?"

"Yeah?"

"…You know that saying, things are darkest before the dawn?"

He nodded. Of course he did. They repeated it to one another at least once a day. Or maybe it was twice a day. It was so hard to tell.

"…Hold on to that, okay?"

"...I'll try."

Joy willed herself to smile.

"…You're a good Emotion. And a true friend. You believe me, don't you?"

Fear hesitantly nodded, his eyes shifting back and forth. "I...I do," he fibbed.

Joy drew a deep breath and closed her eyes, hiding more of herself away as her light began to fade. "You better." A pause. "...I love you so much."

And Fear swallowed, closing his eyes as well. He held her close. "I love you too, Joy."

The lights went out. Fear's arms suddenly caved in toward his chest and he fell forward slightly, blinking into a lingering cloud of her bright, golden traces and specks as they burned away to faded, forgotten ash.

It was dark. Dark, so _suffocatingly_ dark.

"Joy?"

For a crazed instant he thought she was gone.

And one moment into lead to another. And another. And another. And the moment wouldn't change, it wouldn't stop, it wouldn't go away.

What had he done?!

"Oh no, no no no no no, Joy, don't leave me here, don't do this to me, don't go. J-Joy? _Joy?!"_

He caught her last particle in the palm of his hand; his pupils shrank as its trifling glow faded to nothingness, leaving him with just that, with an abundance of _nothing_ , with an overwhelming, stifling, choking, endless void of _nothing_.

Until, that is, his voice found him again, seizing him by the shoulders to shake scream after scream from his the core of his body, filling the Subconscious to the brim with the echoes of Joy's sudden departure.

It was so dark, so horrifyingly dark, dark, _dark_.

It couldn't get any darker than this.

* * *

[ chapter 15 ]

* * *

Riley stared at her phone in silence.

She felt nothing.

Well, no, that wasn't true, she felt something. A few things, in fact. She felt stupid, mostly, for just sitting there, letting the concerned texts of her friends asking if she was alright spill into her palm without bothering to answer or react. She felt humiliated for having cried in the school hallways over some experience she just couldn't forget. And she was furious at herself for feeling humiliated and stupid.

And she felt a little sick to her stomach. It was beginning to truly bother her that she was letting something as trivial and meaningless as her odd mental ticks get in the way of having a social life, of enjoying things, of hating things, of feeling things. The _right_ things. The things she used to feel when she was little. The things she felt before she started to experience these awful monthly episodes.

She lay her phone face down on her desk and folded her hands on top of it. For a long time she was quiet and still.

Then, numbly, she turned it back over and opened up her browser. And she searched for the words, "why can't i just forget?"

A series of suggestions followed. And at the arrival of one particular forum that focused on those suffering from PTSD, Riley frowned.

PTSD...wasn't that a little extreme? She was thankful that she likely didn't count as one of those unlucky few to have the clinical-sounding acronym attached to her name. Even as she passed her eyes along a thread which contained a full description of the term, she felt that PTSD could only be attributed to those who had endured _truly_ wicked events which haunted them by the hour, rendering them incapable of thriving or moving on.

Surely, Riley thought, she hadn't suffered badly enough to deserve any such diagnoses. She was just being... _stupid_...for all of these years. She wasn't letting go of the event she'd witnessed as a kid because she was being... _stupid_.

There were others who deserved to know that they weren't alone more than she did. Others with tremendously horrid backgrounds. Her story wouldn't compare to theirs.

No. She was just a big crybaby who couldn't get over herself. Nothing more.

Her past was nothing.

Very trivial.

Pathetic, really, and she had no business hurting the way she sometimes did.

She certainly didn't deserve any sympathy. Not even so much as a 'Poor Riley.' What an insult that would be to the rest of the community who had suffered _real_ mental scars.

Her scars weren't real. They were made up. She made them up. The permanent lines she'd left on her arms as a kid meant nothing.

And so, for a while, she chose to let it be.

She made an account on the forum one day, but it was only to access other areas of the forum, to read other people's stories and remind herself that she had no right to feel as terrible as she sometimes did when nightmares or visions snuck passed the mental filters she'd forced herself to create.

At times it bolstered her spirits a little and she could be thankful for how smoothly her life had been going thus far. She had two parents who had always loved her, she lived in a country that hadn't been ruined by war, she lived in a city where the earthquakes and natural disasters were rare and very subtle whenever they struck. She had her health. She had her senses. And as far as her violent memories went, she didn't have many to count.

Other times...this forum brought such peace upon her that it became a _detriment_.

When it got too quiet, when she shut the main directors in her head out completely, a vaguely familiar voice would float up from the farthest corner of her mind and flutter behind her ear like a moth. And in these rare moments of peace, she'd hear it whisper things to her.

 _No more dark. No more secrets._

 _I don't want to be afraid anymore._

 _No more secrets. No more dark._

 _I want to go home._

She didn't always understand these strange little whispers meant. Why they raised her temptations to look back on the things she came to dread. The things she was ashamed to claim was ruining her life. But it would tempt her at odd intervals in a way that was so faintly powerful, bizarre as the sensation was, that it would affect her for days and days at a time. Riley would look at the stories she poured over on a weekly basis, tap her fingers, bite her lip, and struggle with it until she began to feel a little less than sane.

Finally, late one evening, with a book report resource open in one tab and the forum tucked away in another, Riley turned down the backlight of her computer screen to try to reduce the stabbing pains of a headache, and realized that for whatever reason, she was crying.

Why?! Why did she have to cry so much? Why couldn't she go for a few months in relative peace? Why did it always have to come back to her? Why did it have to bother her at night? Why did it come rushing back to her at terrible, inopportune times? Why did she have to fight so hard to forget, once and for all?

So she'd seen something bad happen once. It was so long ago.

Why wasn't she just over it by now? Why couldn't she just stand up and move on after _all of this time?_

Was there something wrong with her?

Could looking back help? Could letting it out somehow really help her?

And would that tiny community of people who had _honestly_ suffered understand?

Before she knew it her fingers were scrambling across the keys of her laptop.

Better this, she thought, than against her arms. Though she'd kicked that habit a long time ago, she still remembered how it felt. She remembered how awful it had felt to endure the clawing on the _inside_ , and how it inspired her to claw on the _outside_. How could she forget _that?_

That little voice tucked deep within simply wouldn't let her.

So she used it as her muse, now. She wrote with abandon.

 _"hello. you can call me Prairie Dog._

 _im not sure if its okay for me to post this here because i havent been diagnosed by a doctor or anything, but ive reached a weird point in my life where it sort of feels like i have to do this. im not sure why. I stumbled on this place and kept it in mind because for a while it was actually kind of helpful to know that there are other people out there who've seen things they wish they could forget. it's not really helping anymore. i don't know what else to do. i don't like talking about it because i don't like thinking about it. but it's one in the morning and it's bothering me right now and i'm desperate for things to change._

 _when i was about twelve years old, there was this accident that happened. we were playing hockey, and one of the girls on my team slipped and fell. she never got back up. i saw everything, it happened right in front of me, and there was nothing anyone could have done, but i feel at fault sometimes even though i know im not. she had taken off her helmet, and i remember thinking to tell her to put it on...i don't know why i kept my mouth shut, i guess i just wanted to seem like i trusted her. i didn't want to come across as some know-it-all who liked to boss her teammates around. so i stayed quiet. the next thing i remember, she was down. i had nightmares about it forever, and then i would try to suppress it, and just when i was thinking i'd forgotten about it forever it'd come rushing back to me out of nowhere. i guess you call them flashbacks but i don't know for sure. i've never been to a doctor._

 _i don't know why i won't talk to one. it's not that i'm too scared or too proud to go...i could care less about things like that...maybe that's part of the problem. there was a day i told myself i'd just stop feeling the way i did about the accident i saw, and ever since that day i haven't been able feel ANYTHING the way i'm supposed to. sure i get upset sometimes over things, i get angry, i get annoyed, but i don't get concerned about things the way i used to. my health doesn't really matter to me, nor does my general happiness. i've lost out on relationships and aspects of my life in general because of this. i guess i've just had enough. but apart from posting this i really don't know what to do, i don't know what makes sense anymore._

 _i know the thing i saw is not the worst thing that couldve happened to me. the girl who died wasnt, like, a dear friend of mine, or a relative. i wasnt in a war, i wasnt hurt, i didnt have a near-death experience. i was just a kid and i saw a thing happen._

 _so why does it hurt so much? why do i still feel upset about it after all of these years? why is it still a part of me? why cant i just forget?_

 _am i stuck like this forever?_

 _whats wrong with me?"_

Stop. Submit. Logout.

There.

Done.

Riley was so _finished_ with these dark, empty, awful feelings. She was ready to feel something other than repulsion and fury and agony. She'd give anything to just feel something else again.

At this god-awful stage in her life, she'd gladly take those old feelings of uncertainty, doubt, and even _fear_ over this.

* * *

The lights faded on and off as Riley struggled to sleep, while Disgust drummed her fingers along the edge of the console in her poorly diffused annoyance.

Emerald eyes glimpsed Sadness, who had huddled into the farthest corner of Headquarters, and Disgust's irritation melted into an unpleasant blend of pity and guilt. She regretted snapping at her for driving yet again without any sort of prompt...but for goodness sake, enough was enough, wasn't it? While it was such a relief whenever anybody else drove, giving her a much-needed break from this permanent post at the front of the control panel, she just couldn't stand when Riley cried.

That was why she had done it. That was why she had incited Riley to hash out a half-assed post to that cluster of anonymous online avatars. It was what Sadness had wanted. She'd said so once. So there. With the help of a single stupid lightbulb, Sadness got exactly what she wanted.

Anger, who'd been opposed to the idea all along, could just gag on it. Disgust didn't care anymore. Especially not at the moment. He had been the one to rush Riley's post, he'd been the one to slam her computer screen down. They'd be lucky if it wasn't broken.

"You're pathetic, Disgust, you're more delusional than Joy was before she ran off."

Anger loved to bring that up.

"They're just going to tell us to grow up. They're going to tell us to get over ourselves. And you know what? They should. 'Cause they're right."  
"Whatever," Disgust dryly retorted. "Let them be right. So what. I really don't care anymore."  
"If you don't care, then why'd you do it?"  
"What else do you want me to do? What else is left?"

Anger's tongue struggled behind his teeth. Disgust took advantage of his stunned silence at once.

"I'm sick of just sitting on our heels, waiting for things to change for us. It's not working. We're in Limbo, Anger, and I'm sick and tired of this place. I want out."  
Anger groaned at her.  
"So I told some anonymous people about that thing we saw when we were a kid. So what? What's the worst that's going to happen? Am I going to get arrested for it? They going to sentence _me_ to the Memory Dump too?"

Sadness shuddered noisily in the background, and Anger positively cringed.

Disgust shrugged her naked shoulders at the both of them, and then, rather suddenly, she recoiled, as the Train of Thought blared its horn so close to the back windows of Headquarters that all three heads turned to it. Its brakes were screeching to a halt.

Disgust's heart sank in her chest as she took a step backward. _Dear God._ What had she done?

A long, menacing moment of silence passed before there was a thump at the door, followed by respectful-though-frantic knocking.

No one could move.

Disgust's voice jammed itself in her throat.

Without warning, the door was carefully pushed open, allowing the Conductor of the train and an old, familiar face to enter the room again. It was that same Coordinator who had briefly introduced himself the day Fear was taken away. Anger flinched to see it, and Sadness whimpered, huddling herself into a tight, anxious ball at the back of Headquarters, at first.

Sadness was the one to note the odd traces of warmth in the Mind Worker's face.

"Sorry to come knocking so late, folks," he said, somewhat breathlessly. "Am I interrupting any-?"  
"What do _you_ want?" Anger, who had been lashing out at Disgust not moments ago, stomped in front of her. The thickness of his arms seemed to increase as he spread them out as though to defend her.

The Coordinator was surprised by his behaviour at first - and then, he patiently eased, and understood where Riley's Anger was coming from. There were hints of a grin on his face, though it was clear that to maintain his calm, professional air, he was working to suppress it. "I just got some news," he explained, "and I wanted to be the first one to tell you that there's been a change of plans recently."

The three Emotions looked back at one another. Confused.

"The SPR Agenda is no longer in effect."

This, to his surprise, did little to alleviate the lost appearance of the Emotions' eyes. Even Disgust, whose complexion had been becoming dangerously pale, was not as relieved by the news as she should have been.

In truth, they'd been under the agenda's influence for so long that they didn't know what its departure would mean for them anymore. They knew that it kept fearful Memories from entering Headquarters...they'd known, to some extent, that it would cost them old Personalty Islands and bring new and strange ones upon them, such as Introvert Island, Hairtrigger Island, Insomnia Island...

They had no idea if they should be celebrating or not.

The lights began to dim, and the Coordinator startled. If Riley fell asleep now, he'd have no way to get back home until morning. Thankfully - well, he could only be so thankful, he supposed - she was still fighting for sleep, and the lights rushed back on. With that, he sighed; the faint suggestion of cheer seemed to cloud over. Times certainly had changed...perhaps Headquarters was well and truly over its old ways and was satisfied with the way things were currently going. If that was the case, rushing up here to deliver the news had been a waste of his time.

He lowered his eyes and dug about in his coat pocket for a set of keys attached to a metal ring. "...Well...you know, in the end, whenever you decide to turn things around - if you do - it's up to you, this round. Now that the Agenda's retiring...so am I." He passed his eyes over the crew. "Who's in charge up here, these days?"

Anger forced his gaze over his shoulder. Still apprehensive since the Coordinator's last visit, which had cost him the existence of one of his friends, he didn't want to take any chances. Disgust was preparing to be brave, to announce that she, essentially, was Riley's primary Emotion, but Anger spoke over her, stepping forward.

"We're _all_ in charge, here."

If anything was going to happen to them, they were going to go out together.

However, that didn't seem to be what this visitation was about. The Coordinator approached Anger and lowered the keys into the palm of his hand. "Then, you'll need these. Don't lose them; we didn't bother to make any spares."

Anger looked down to his palm and frowned. "...What're these for?"

The question made the Mind Worker a little uncomfortable. "...We had to take certain special measures a while back, due to a number of...erm...flaws in our old security system. It was for the best, you have to understand. It was what Riley wanted. But if you folks ever _do_ decide to welcome Fear back into Headquarters, now that the ban on him has been lifted-"

"Wait - _what?!"_

Anger's voice echoed off the walls of the control area. Everybody startled. Sadness, Disgust, even the Conductor, who was so eager to return to his ride that his attention to the group had faded, leaving him vulnerable to loud shouts such as the one previous.

The Coordinator hadn't expected this.

Anger's outline shimmered and waved. He was furious but he didn't understand why. The keys in his hands seemed to be mocking him, somehow. He wanted to chuck them at the window with enough force to send them flying out to the Memory Dump, where the damned things belonged. "You're _sick_ ," he hissed through his teeth. "You know that? The day you first showed your face in here, I thought there was something wrong with you. But how was I to know you'd ever stoop so low?"  
An awkward pause.

"You _really_ expect me to believe that a set of _keys_ are going to bring Fear back up from the Memory Dump?"

The Mindworker's eyes went wide.

"Do you think this is a joke to us? Did you think we'd get a kick out of this, or something?"  
"Hold on a minute."  
"He was a good friend of ours. He was a part of our _family_."  
"Let me explain."  
"And the day you bastards took him away, the instant Riley forgot about him, things went from bad to worse."  
"There's something you don't understand! Let me talk."  
"No. We're done talking."

Anger marched toward the other, forcing the Coordinator toward the door.

It was Sadness who put a stop to it, resting her hands on Anger's shoulders, ignorant of the powerful heat they produced. So engulfed in his own fury, he almost forgot who she was, what she meant to him, and nearly shoved her off of him.

Until she spoke. "Wait. What is it? What's going on?"

The Coordinator stammered on the spot. He was not at all intimidated by Anger's menacing glare. Something else had stolen his reason, marking him with disbelief. "...I...I just assumed you all knew about it. I assumed you'd all been caught up to speed. I figured Joy would've told you what happened before she resigned from Headquarters or something _._ I'm sorry. I thought you knew. I honestly thought you all knew about it." He gulped. _"_ Fear...Fear was _never_ forgotten."

A sickened sensation spread through Disgust's body. Anger's fists shuddered at his sides. Sadness's eyes began to well with tears.

"...He's been in the Subconscious since November, 2016."

 _Years ago._

\- • -

They filed onto the train, and not a moment too soon.

The instant the locomotive's rails hit the glittery grounds of Riley's Mindscape, the invisible sun which illuminated their world faded away, and the incessant lingering noise of Insomnia Island came to a grinding halt.

Riley was asleep at last, and Disgust, Anger and Sadness were free to embark on their solemn mission.

The Coordinator flashed a badge to the men guarding the large knotted doors. Anger studied the wood with hatred. Disgust felt nauseous as its creaking yawn filled the air. Sadness, however, looked up to the doors with a bizarre courage the other two never expected of her. It was as though she had been to this place before and knew what to expect.

But, she was wrong. The moment Sadness and her colleagues plodded over the threshold, she realized that this was not the place she remembered visiting when Riley was little. It was still dark, still frightening, it continued to house the chilling shadows of Riley's darkest fears, though none of them seemed visibly present anymore. Now, in addition to its old ways, it seemed grave and stark. Mature. There weren't really words to describe it anymore.

There were ghosts here, now. The place was haunted by dead, defunct Memories, and they had mutated this place into something Anger, Sadness and Disgust wanted nothing more than to flee. If they listened closely, they could hear the scrapes of metal blades on thick ice, the crack of wood against the puck, and the distinctive sound of a body hitting the ground with a fatal _thud_.

Though this was evocative enough for them, making the trio sick to their stomachs, it was another seemingly endless sound that seized their attention, towing them toward its source. A fragile, spasmodic voice echoed off the walls of the Subconscious, and because of the way it seemed to contradict everything about this place, because of how _undark_ it was even in this world of darkness, they had no doubts who it belonged to.

And so, at last, following these sounds, they found him. Or at least, they found was left of him.

Sadness fell to the back of the group, her hands clapped over her mouth. Anger locked up tight a few steps ahead of her, his lips parted, eyes bursting from his head. Which left Disgust in closest proximity to Fear's shivering outline...she felt, then, that it was up to her to address him. He seemed to be looking at her, but she couldn't be sure _what_ he could actually see with those empty, delirious eyes of his. No, the more she looked back at him, the more it occurred to her that he was in fact staring straight through her, his thin, barely-existent pupils dancing to-and-fro against the background. They glimpsed Anger and Sadness, and they passed them off too, with a cheerless breath of laughter. His gaze drifted lazily through the air like thistle down before coming to rest on the ground somewhere, with no intention of looking up again.

Some trick of the moment willed strength into Disgust's body again. She strayed toward him, still searching his downcast eyes for any semblance of awareness, any echo of the lost friend she never truly lost – but then, to judge from his persisting silence, his failure to react to their presence beyond the odd, sudden flinch and the frantic sighs he breathed into the cluster of his crooked fingers, she realized he was in fact more lost now than she'd thought he was before. He would have been better off forgotten. This stole all of her strength. Her spirits deflated, fled her body. She melted helplessly in front of him.

"Fear...oh, Fear, please talk to me. Say something."

He gave her nothing.

Disgust turned around and found Anger's eyes again, noting the embers that sizzled away at his outline. She summoned him and those keys they'd been given, despising the way her voice kept trembling as she spoke.

Anger hesitantly blinked out of his daze and shoved a hand deep into his left pocket, staring blindly into space. He extracted the keys and approached Disgust and their fallen partner, having to think in strange, mechanical stages to power one foot in front of the other.

The instant their shadows descended upon him, Fear grit his teeth and tucked into the wall at his back, eyes bursting as he squirmed and made the true horrors of his position in the Subconscious known. Tears sparkled on Disgust's lashes as a fruitless struggle to extract him from his chains took place. Anger couldn't bring himself to pin their friend down, though it seemed like it would be the only way. "J-just give him your hands, Fear, it'll be okay..." But he wasn't having it. He couldn't tolerate being touched or spoken to. He perceived every subtle movement as a violent attack that just barely missed him; well-intentioned words sounded nonsensical, garbled and reversed to him, with spastic placements of steel blades against the ice laced into each menacing whisper.

Before long, before the process could be drug out to the point of becoming unintentionally cruel, Sadness struggled to the front of the assembly, begging Disgust and Anger not to crowd him anymore. Sadness lowered to the ground and found herself staring into the depths of two bottomless wells of pain and panic. His gaze was deep and winding; it gave her a frightening surge of vertigo. But she didn't let it go, no matter how challenging it was to hold on.

Disgust and Anger were forced to be patient. They were forced to trust that, as always, Sadness knew what she was doing, no matter how backwards her actions seemed, no matter how little sense they made. They were made to swallow their pride as Sadness worked little miracles over him, somehow able to breathe wave after wave of calm over him when it seemed impossible only minutes ago. She leaned in close, touching the tip of her nose to his, and after a long pause, an empty spell where the two simply experienced one another, Sadness whispered something to him. Fear swallowed in response, listlessly slipping his hands into hers. She lifted his fingers to her lips and kissed them, while Fear's gaze continued to burn holes into some alternate dimension the others couldn't see.

After a long, long time, after what felt like half of the eternity that Fear knew of, Sadness whispered something to him again. A profound, deafening silence followed. In that moment of silence, Fear's roving pupils contracted, then grew...and little strange lights were resurrected in them, as his gaze swam from one dimension to another, trying to find its way home, trying with all of its might to focus on what seemed so very much like reality. A reality he could trust...a reality that was _safe_.

His eyes filled to the brim with tears that had forgotten how to spill.

Sadness and Fear became locked together, eye-to-listless-eye, and even as Anger's heavy hand landed on her shoulder after some obscure passage of time, she couldn't quite remember how to breathe.

Sadness knew exactly what was trying to tell her. Slowly, she looked over her shoulder to the others to relay the message.

"...Joy is... _gone..."_

A deafening pause _,_ as Anger and Disgust absorbed her words in silence.

Disgust had had enough. She couldn't take anymore. She stepped forward once Sadness returned her gaze to Fear, holding him in his stupor with nothing but a look, and kept her head bowed to mask her tears as she gave Sadness the tools to release Fear's hands, one by one, before freeing his neck from this one chosen wall in the Subconscious at long last.

His lashes fluttered, and Disgust knew this was the best he could do at expressing his relief.

 _If only he would say something._

Then, perhaps, she could feel a little relief too.

"Come on."

She wasn't sure if his hearing was selective or if he just liked Sadness more than he liked her, but even so, she spoke to him anyway. Though she was heartbroken to have found him like this, it felt good to accept that even if he wouldn't speak to her, he, at least, was still in existence. Really, it did.

"...We're going home."

* * *

[chapter 16]

* * *

Days fade in and out. Fear doesn't know if he's awake or asleep anymore. Things seem false one minute, and feel very real the next.

He's beginning to think he might actually be back in Headquarters.

But isn't that wrong? Doesn't he _belong_ in the Subconscious in place of those Memories he crafted? Wasn't that what Riley had wanted? Won't he get in trouble for this?

Disgust doesn't seem to think so. Sometimes, when he's seated at the back of Headquarters, watching as events unfold from the security of the distance, Disgust will suddenly appear in front of him and take his hand, help him to his feet, and guide him to a sofa. "...I-isn't that more comfortable?" she might ask, and Fear can't argue - nor can he agree. The back wall just feels like home to him, now. Fear can't tell the difference between that and wall he'd been chained to in the Subconscious. He doesn't know how to tell her this anymore.

"You're going to be okay," she insists, without letting go of his hand. She kisses his cheek. "You'll see. You're going to be alright. You're _home_ now."

Perhaps.

Unless this _is_ just a dream.

Anger is getting frustrated with him for thinking with any doubt. But Fear can't help it. Dreams can feel so real, and he had so many pleasant ones while he was down in the Subconscious and he was fooled into believing them every time. He would dream that Mom had come to tuck him in, or that he was back home, and everything was fine, only to wake up in the dark, alone and terrified -

Suddenly he's being throttled by Anger's great hands and he cries out, eyes wide as they gaze into two fireballs of rage above him, and he trembles so badly in Anger's grasp that his teeth chatter.

"Answer me!" Anger bellows, jerking Fear violently between his palms. Fear's voice gives out; his whimpers are rendered silent. "I'm talking to you! I'm right here! You're awake! You're home! Don't you get it?!"

There are tears in Anger's eyes.

Everything about him softens as he holds Fear by the wrists and gently guides them apart, well away from one another. "...S-see?...look. Use your eyes, _look_."  
Fear appeases him in desperation.  
"...You're home. It's alright, now." He lets Fear go and backs away from him, looking at his own hands now. "...I...I'm sorry, I'm not mad...I just want you to understand that you're...you're _home."_

Is he?

Sadness might be the only one who really understands that he is going to struggle whether they want him to or not. She's the only one who is simply patient with him. She doesn't tow him here or there, she doesn't demand that he understand or that he feel better, and she certainly doesn't seize or threaten him. She doesn't tell him things will be alright. Probably because she's not sure either. But every now and again, she will offer him a tiny smile. And he wonders.

When he is sitting at the back window...Sadness will sit with him. When she addresses him and he doesn't answer, she seems to comprehend the silence anyway. This way, Sadness and Fear become secret and silent best friends. They stand together in the majority of shared moments. Sadness brings him cups of tea he's not sure what to do with these days, she gently leads him around Headquarters and re-introduces him to the devices and the furnishing when he feels up for it...she even goes so far as to lead him to bed.

She knows when he needs her...and she knows when he needs solitude.

Fear doesn't like to have it often, but these days he gets overwhelmed very easily. He needs space and silence to concentrate on the possibility that it really is over and that Riley has let him come back home.

Really, what he wants more than anything is to hear it from Riley herself somehow. He want Riley to give him some sort of sign that she trusts him to take care of her again.

Then, he'll know for sure that he's back.

Riley wakes up, and because of Insomnia Island and its horrid cacophony, she cannot fall back to sleep. It's very early...barely after five in the morning.

Fear glimpses the Console and then tears his eyes away. The sight of it, the way it seems to beckon him forth with menacing curves of its finger, gives him chills that will take hours to subside. But then, his eye slips toward it again, letting its edge peek into his peripheral, and for a half-second he thinks he might want to try driving again. Then, as quickly as the desire came, he shakes the urge and nibbles his finger. His vision dims.

 _Don't even THINK about it. Does Fear want to wind up in the **Subconscious** again? Hmm?_

 _Sorry, sorry. I won't do it again._

He leans against the back window and sinks to the floor. He lets Riley try to fall back to sleep in silence, without any emotional influence. The others are still in bed.

If he listens closely, he can almost hear the faint notes of Joy's patient stories; if he unfocuses his eyes he can see her hands and their golden fingers fingers curled within his, and he can carefully play with them again; if he closes his eyes he can immerse himself in the Before...and it's like she never left his side in the depths of the Subconscious.

In his head, Joy asks if she'll hold him like Mom and Dad used to, and he this time passively declines. She asks why, and he tells her it's because he knows what will happen to her if he gives in. So instead, he tells her it'll be okay. It was just a nightmare, it was just an unfortunate, poorly fermented series of thoughts during her most vulnerable phase of sleep. It was her mind's sorry attempt to find meaning in these thoughts, attempting to interpret misdirected signals from the brain, creating a horror story out of involuntary mental activity. This seems to calm her down. He asks her what her nightmare was about, and she tells him it was of the accident. Ah, yes, that horrible accident. Fear still has nightmares about it too. But it's okay. At least they're awake now. And yes, even if they are trapped down here, at least they still have each other.

Fear opens his eyes again. He sees Headquarters spread out in front of him, with the Console dead ahead, enticing him to stare at it.

He decides he must be dreaming.

Slowly, Fear stands up. If this is a dream, then there can be no consequences. Suddenly, he isn't afraid of the Console anymore. Suddenly, he wants to drive, just a little. While Riley tries to fall back into a deep sleep against the efforts of Insomnia Island, Fear creeps up to the control panel and looks down at it.

He chuckles. This dream, like so many others, is stunningly vivid. Every code he's ever memorized comes rushing back to him. How easily he could reach down to the keys to recall all of the memories of the incident and watch them over and over again, the way he tried to that fateful day Joy convinced him to send them all to the Subconscious.

If this is a dream, then doing this might trigger the damaged depths of his own memories and make Joy appear. Maybe he can pretend to fix the mistakes of the past and tell Joy that her plan will bring everything down to its knees. He can at least _dream_ of a timeline where things never went so wrong.

He laughs again as he lowers his hand to the panel and summons a Memory. His spine shudders the moment he hears the sounds of blades on the ice, the instant he glimpses the violet recollection of the girl's eyes. Fear forces himself to stare at it. His chest feels tight. It hurts to breathe. But it's okay, it's just a dream, there can be no consequences. Fear studies the Memory hard as it plays on. It's vivid and fresh as though it was just made in recent moments.

Everything is still perfectly clear and radiant.

It's like he's really here.

As though he isn't really dreaming at all.

A part of him feels devastated as he watches the events of the incident unfold. A greater part of him wants to look away. But the part that wins is the part that laughs out loud and rewinds the footage to study it again and again.

It's just a dream. There can be no consequences.

Riley sits up in bed, coated in a fine sweat, and cups her head in her hands. She is half-asleep, half-awake, and she shudders against the Memories as Fear recalls them. But he doesn't stop there. He keeps going until a pair of hands seize his own, but he doesn't startle or attempt stop what he's doing...he fights to maintain his grasp on the Console, unable to control his laughter as it blends into tears. He locks his eyes on the Monitor and flails to reach the controls and rewind the Memory once more as the Someone behind him tries to pry him away. He has to. He knows that he has to in order to continue his dream of a better future.

Soon he hears a voice tingle upon the air as it calls his name. At long last, he is dreaming about Joy's arrival. She's come to stop him and suggest that they send Riley's Memories to the Subconscious. His eyes scramble through the air until they stumble upon Joy and her faintly glowing outline. Fear gasps for breath as he beholds her and tries to draw the strength to tell her all that he knows. He knows exactly what will happen to them if they banish all of Riley's Memories to the Subconscious. He tries to tell her that if they do this, Riley will change, terrible things will happen to her, she'll hurt, and he won't be able to help her, and Joy will be lost forever.

But he can't talk. She looks so _real_. And he's so glad to see her. He can't talk.

Joy holds him steady and her eyes pour into his. Fear waits for her to speak, but she is silent too, which means that the flow of his dream has gone astray and he's lost control. He doesn't know what this means...he's so afraid of what will happen next that he can do little more than whimper in Joy's hands and wait for this dream to turn into a nightmare, just like they always do.

Fear closes his eyes and pleads with himself to wake up, even if waking up will render him alone in the Subconscious, left with nothing but the dark and endless questions of how else his dream could've ended. It had been so good while it lasted...he'd been home again, he was just getting used to things...and he'd come so close to dreaming about an entirely different outcome...and even better, for a few fleeting moments he'd dreamed that he'd never lost Joy to the Subconscious.

He slowly forces his eyes open.

But there is no darkness. No emptiness stretched before him. No Subconscious fetters or walls.

Joy is still here, smiling weakly at him. And he dares himself to think that he has been awake all this time.

But...but _that_ would mean...

Joy touches the side of his face and his eyes flutter. He's dizzy, he's going to faint...but her words catch him before he falls under and he remembers to breathe, focusing hard on the sound of her voice as it addresses him.

"...One of the last things I remember, before everything started to go dark, was that wish we made together," Joy whispers. Her voice is just barely audible, as though it's coming from miles away. She sounds so fragile, like a newborn. Fear's eyes begin to glisten. "...I knew it would come true someday...I'd knew we'd both make it back home somehow...it was just a matter of 'when'. And now...here we are..."

Maybe Fear is still dreaming. Maybe he's dreaming that he survived the Subconscious, that Riley addressed her fears and opened up to someone about the Memories that haunt her...maybe he's dreaming that he made it back to Headquarters, that he is surrounded by his old friends and his familiar comforts, and that somehow, after time, and rest, and knowing that there were at least some people out there who know how Riley feels, who insist that she try to get help someday...somehow...all of this contributed to resurrecting Joy.

If this is a dream, Fear hopes he _never_ wakes up.

The Emotions, overcome by one another, finally embrace. Joy runs a feather-light hand down his back, and Fear clenches her shoulders, too afraid to let her go. Worried that if he does, she'll disappear.

Joy smiles as she rests her head on Fear's shoulder, taking a deep breath for the two of them.

This _must_ be the dawn they've been telling themselves would come. Though she never expected it would come this way, and she has no idea what the future holds, the dawn is here at long last, and inside, she rejoices. Joy pans her gaze up to the Monitor, watching as Riley gets out of bed. Light floods into Headquarters as Riley begins to pace back and forth, her arms folded.

Disgust and Anger gasp in unison from the second level, and Joy throws her gaze up to them. The two are frozen, their eyes locked onto her, and Joy already feels weary, knowing how much there will be to explain, how much there will be to apologize for...she tries to read them, to judge how furious they are with her, or to determine if there is so much of a glimmer of respect left for her, but both Anger and Disgust are shocked beyond recognition to see her.

Sadness, however, looks entirely different as she positions her glasses on her face and regards Joy as though for the first time. Her eyes fill with tears...there is a tiny smile beginning to glow on her face.

Joy is eager to address them in spite of how tremendously difficult it will be. There is so much to be said. So much she needs to apologize for. So much she has to explain.

She tries to let go of Fear and move toward them but he quickly captures her hand in his and leads her up to the Console.

He directs her hand onto the control button and has her lean down on a button. Riley, in response, takes a deep, cleansing breath and dials a number on her cellular. Fear holds onto Joy even as a familiar voice climbs into the air.

Fear's eyes flutter. He dares to smile. He even thinks that this could mean that everything is going to be okay. Maybe this dream won't turn into a nightmare after all. Maybe it's a dream that _will_ last forever.

Below them, Joy makes the console gleam a proud, handsome gold for the first time in what has been years.

* * *

"...Mom?" says Riley in a shaky voice. "...I'm sorry to call so early..."

She cups the cellular in both hands and holds it close to her face. She's still shaking from the flashbacks, but for once, she feels she can see the end of the tunnel. She feels as though she can see a little sliver of light.

"...I think I need to come home for a while...I think I need to talk to you..."

A deep, deep breath. And of all things, a little smile, however brief.

"...I think I need help...Please, Mom, tell me what to do...please help me..."

And, however slowly, however unceremoniously, the sun came up at long last.

* * *

 _I had a tiny bit more planned for this ending originally, a very short epilogue of sorts, but I only have it half-written. I personally felt so brought down by the story's outcome that the epilogue was the point where I started to seriously reconsider the ending. By then, I had chapter 9 posted. :b Whomp whomp. So, though I know this ending is still cut a little short, this is as far as it goes._

 _Please, go read something more light-hearted now, haha. That's what I'm about to do right now._

 _If you read this, thank you so much...I hope, at the very least, that you enjoyed at least a little. c:_

 _~KQSimply_


End file.
